

*t 









^A J/eiv Years Wish. 

T pray not that the coming year 

Strew roses wheresoever you tread, 

XLot thai blue styes and morning sun 
£&e ever Bright above your head. 

£ do not pray your life be free 

S^rom every petty care and trial, 

J2$r do £asf( you ne'er shoufd tyioW 
15he need of stringent self -denial. 

ZBut rather fet me asf{for you 

Courage the battle of life to face, — 
Courage to face, the strength to fight, 

Jfnd faith to Win the hardest race. 

j£nd J would asf{, besides, a friend, 
*(Do understand uou all in all, 

'(DO ta^e your hand when all seems lost, 
'(DO trust tjou though the heavens fall. 



Copyright, 1909 by 
The English Leaflet Company 



THE 
PAINTER OF MADONNAS 

AND OTHER POEMS 



BY 



CHARLES MAURICE STEBBINS 



The English Leaflet Company- 
Brooklyn, N. Y. 



Two Oooies Received 

JAN 4 1909 

Copynmu rjttry - 
OVASS OC- 

• a: f 



75 3^3] 









'1 



The Painter of Madonnas 



You ask, my fair friend, why I choose to live 
A bachelor, and be content to give 
Mind, heart, and soul to painting, as I do, 
These pictures of a sex, it seems to you 
My life, if it speaks aught, rather condemns 
Than otherwise — these bits of fancy, too, 
You and the world are pleased to title gems 
Of art ; why think with brush so loftily 
Of woman, yet abjure her whole society! 

I hold that sometime, somewhere, soon or late, 

'Tis given to every man to meet his fate 

In some one woman's face; and I met mine. 

My years of youth I gave to waste and wine, 
To hawk, to horse, and hunt, the nothingness 



THE PAINTER OF MADONNAS 

Of courtly foppery — yea, I confess 

Frankly to you, not lightly though, the curse 

Which fell upon my early life, and — worse 

Or better — helped to make me what you find — 

One given to worship what he hath resigned, 

Renounced, made up his life without, a truth 

That is as false as true, as true, insooth, 

As false. You fail to understand the phrase? 

Just as you do my alien — say you — ways 

Of life. You thought, perhaps, I never knew 

To love a woman generously and true, 

Felt never the full burst of soul and bloom, 

When love's red sunlight enters through the gloom 

And strikes the fallow ground ; perchance you think 

The sun rose, roused the fallow ground, to sink 

Only and leave it waster than before, 

And drearier. In that you wrong me sore. 

'Twas on a night like this, a night of June — 
As like to this as moon mav be to moon — 



THE PAINTER OF MADONNAS 

Forgive details, for though to you they seem, 

Perhaps, but drift that only clogs the stream, 

To me they are as much part of the whole 

As eye is of the sight, or mind of soul. 

A score of years and five indeed is long 

To treasure up one clay out of a throng 

Of days so very like ; but as one touch 

Completes or spoils my Virgin, just so much 

Serves to call forth from the abyss 

Of hours, and make it live as this, 

I speak of, lives with me, perfect to-day. 

Aye, it was five and twenty years ago 

Day after next, that I first learned to know 

Love's genuine place and power in life, to weigh 

It in the balance of eternal worth 

And find it sovereign of all things on earth. 

Yes — since you ask it — I had loved before, 
Felt what, at least, in common parlance bore 
The name; to speak full truth, such fancies were 






THE PAINTER OF MADONNAS 

But little rarer than the seasons of the year, 

Neither less varied, but enough of these; 

They passed like leaves in autumn from the trees. 

Spring came again, but a perennial spring 

To me. 'Twas at a ball given to the king, 

The former king, my father's friend, I met 

That face, and recognized and paid the debt 

We owe to nature. I had passed the hours, 

The evening through, with one I taxed my powers 

In vain, convincing of my love. I vowed 

To be her knight till death, her slave, and proud 

To be a slave to her; or I would move 

A mountain, dry the sea to woo her love. 

She only laughed a little laugh of scorn. I went 

In shame and anger to take leave, and meant 

To heal the hurt in wine, but — this is how 

It came to pass that from that day till now 

I have forborne wine, and the courtly crew, 

And hawk and hunt, and women — th' world and you 

Say woman — to paint these pictures you admire ; 



THE PAINTER OF MADONNAS 

Which, you are kind enough to say, inspire 
In you a nobler hope for womanhood. 

From all the rest of that gay throng 
She stood apart, near where I passed; and down 
Before her, softer than the satin gown 
They rested on, were clasped her snow white hands — 
Quite as in yonder half-done sketch she stands — 
I somehow saw them, raised my eyes. 'Twere vain 
To try describe the ecstacy, the pain 
I lived that minute ; this alone must do : 
Whatever faith I had before, I knew 
Then that there was a God in heaven. — This, here, 
This Virgin, which requires a touch, is near 
As I have come — however hard I strive — 
To giving others that which will survive 
In me life-long, and through the grave, I feel, 
To life again. Despite my utmost zeal, 
There's more within than I have power to place 
Upon the cloth ; more in the once seen face, 



THE PAINTER OF MADONNAS 

So lily-pure, rose-perfect, perfect eyes 

And brow and mouth and all. This fails 

In depth and purity of soul ; details 

Of dress and form are accurately done, 

But little better — if at all — than this, begun 

Some twenty years ago, the earliest one, 

But wait, I had not told you all; her eyes, 

Whose depths disclosed a pristine paradise 

Of soul, as I stood statue-like, met mine, 

And somehow rested there. No single sign, 

As I recall — and well do I remember — of surprise, 

Or fear, or question, crossed her countenance 

Until we had stood minutes there in trance, 

It seemed; and then her silken lashes fell 

Upon her lily cheek, and she was gone. 

xAnd 1 went out and wandered till the dawn. 

I knew then that my time had come to throw 
Aside the nothingness of life, outgrow 
Vain self, and bury up the worthless past 



THE PAINTER OF MADONNAS 

Within a noble future. Fair and vast 

The world expanded around me, quickened, grew 

From twilight into daylight, blossomed through. 

Old passes, gray and dim with darkness, turned 

To flowering vistas ; clouded heights that spurned 

The sunlight now glowed purple; from the wold 

Mists shrunk and left it haloed with pure gold. 

Then foil and foible, tint and tinsel dropt 

From life and left it lustrous ; trifling stopt 

And aims grew boundless. Purpose mounted high 

With will to master those great arts that vie 

In forms of noble beauty. He who loves 

One face in all the thousands, ever moves 

In highering circles, never is content 

To rest but one thing, has his purpose bent 

To be musician, scupltor, painter, yea, 

And poet ; yearning, striving thus in lay 

Or statue, portrait, poem, to unseal 

His soul's high secret; find for his ideal 

An adequate expression ; tries to cramp 



10 THE PAINTER OF MADONNAS 

His spirit into lyric, epic ; stamp 
A shapeless mass with form and feature ; paint 
A picture in the likeness of a saint 
Or the Madonna, symbol to the heart 
The nearest, of the object he enshrines 
Within the holiest of holies, twines 
His soul to, worships, — such, love's art. 

So Petrarch for his love of Laura wrote 
Those sonnets ; Angelo's deft hammer smote 
The graceless mass of marble into form 
And feature ; and above the wildering storm, 
My heart assures me, poor Beethoven caught 
Love's raidiant sunlight, while his fingers wrought 
The sweet sonatas. So my love for her 
Paints these madonnas, which, your words aver, 
Are worthy of the language they would speak. 
And now you ask me why I did not seek 
And claim her as my birthright; why forsake 
The one great prize in life without a word 



THE PAINTER OF MADONNAS 11 

Said or deed dared. Just as you erred 
Before, you err in this. The gem is mine — 
Has been from that night forth, my light of life — 
More perfectly, I hold, than wigged divine 
Could make it by pronouncing man and wife, 
More perfectly, more purely. How could I 
Seek her whose very worth did prophesy 
Against me, a nothing whose sole worth did lie 
In the power to do, to be, that she had given? 
From childhood I had never nobly striven 
For any worthy object. Life meant to desire, 
To have, and to enjoy ; true, visions higher 
Flashed meteor-like athwart my random way 
From out the golden realm where youth in May 
Rears his fair castles. Splendidly I dreamed, 
But the pursuit of these high passions seemed 
Like following wandering fires ; and so I grew 
Drifting to manhood, to the world and self untrue, 
Not knowing my own falseness. 



12 THE PAINTER OF MADONNAS 

Then she came : 
Light fell in floods, revealing my life's shame 
And utter nakedness ; but faith came, too, 
And hope, and power to be, and will to do 
All that which makes a man. And from that day- 
Till now one only purpose has held sway 
Over my life ; not merely to retrieve 
A wasted past, but so to interweave 
Truth that had blazed its way to my poor heart, 
One simple truth in one truth-telling art, 
That it might speak and all mankind assure 
That one true woman, noble, gentle, pure, 
Atones for all the sins of half a world 
Of shallow natures. She has e'er unfurled 
The banner of her sex, not they; and stands 
Supremely beautiful, where she commands 
The motions of the world from her great height,- 
A living power, a benediction ; and a light. 
They only serve, in their poor idle way, 
To make her glory greater. 



THE PAINTER OF MADONNAS 13 

The first day, 
Yea, first day, after my new life began 
Found me bound Romeward, there to live and scan 
The work of Raphael and Angelo 
And many another whose heart's sacred glow 
Wrought everlastingly, embodying 
In noble beauty those high truths that cling 
To noble natures. How I stood amazed 
In th' wonder of it all, as there I gazed, 
Feeding my soul upon those glimpses caught 
Out of eternity by minds that wrought 
Against the rust of time ! Yea, I was dazed, 
And ghostly fears for one short moment razed 
My hope to dust, as suddenly there dawned 
Light that revealed how vast a region yawned 
Between me and the glorious realm I sought; 
But then a sea of joy surged back, befraught 
With confidence and courage. Then to work 
Undaunted, work that left no doubt to lurk 
In shadowy corners. From gray dawn to dark 



14 THE PAINTER OF MADONNAS 

I labored; many a morn I heard the lark 
Ease his full throat in his long flight of song; 
My heart sang with his; joy, however long 
The day, was longer, for the once-seen face 
Was with me, and a presence whose sweet grace 
Filled ever all my world. I grew in power 
Of grasp and of performance. With a dower 
Like mine, 'twas little wonder; for, each day 
I grew in gift to apprehend what lay 
Within that visioned countenance, behold, 
Like love that giving grows, it did unfold 
Rare beauties that I had not seen before; 
And thus I strove for seven years and more, 
Seven fruitful years, in Italy, to learn 
A language all-expressive, which would spurn 
To speak but of the highest; thus I. came 
To paint madonnas; thus retrieved my shame; 
And then turned homeward. 

Yes, there comes again 
Your question, Why let years thus wax and wane 



THE PAINTER OF MADONNAS 15 

Without once venturing a deed or word 

In my own heart's behalf? Think not there stirred 

No passion in me, wrestled no desire 

For conquest. To speak truth, consuming fire 

Besieged, possessed me ; with wild beasts I fought : 

For on the eve of my return I caught 

A sudden rumor thrilling through the land, 

That princely Bertram, he at whose command 

More vassals bow than people half a score 

Of kingdoms such as ours, stood at her door 

A suitor. Heralded and hailed he came, 

With noble lineage, and wealth, and fame 

That many a king might envy. How I longed 

To take a rival place with him, how thronged 

My brain with doubtful fancies, you, my friend, 

Can only half imagine. In the end 

My better angel triumphed, banished doubt 

And self, enthroned plain duty, pointed out 

The one true way that stretched before me, pledged 

My faith in solemn pact unprivileged. 



16 THE PAINTER OF MADONNAS 

I held and hold that love's true function, end 

For which the world was made, is just to blend 

The soul with beauty, thrilled with purpose high ; 

To gladden, greaten, and to glorify 

Life, render perfect what has failed, thro' fault, 

Of its true consummation ; to exalt 

Steadfast endeavor, sanction truth, right wrong, 

Turn gloom to sunshine, sorrow unto song. 

What gain of good had I to hold my hope 

Expectant? What expansion in the scope 

Of mind's endeavor or fulfillment, growth 

Of soul, had I to look for in a troth 

Of lives between us? She belonged to all 

High places, I but to the cloistered hall. 

And should I, since she once benignly beamed 

A sudden radiance downward, through mists gleamed 

And void and darkness, to my corner poor 

And dismal of the world, attempt to lure 

Her hither, hem, confine her glorious light 

Of day, to render my cramped cloister bright? 



THE PAINTER OF MADONNAS 17 

I knew a duke once whose whole life was spent 

In one consuming passion. The extent 

Of his broad lands, the horse, the hounds, the hunt, 

His dukedom's weal, — such interests as are wont 

To make up life, were things remembered not 

By him. He gave unto his garden plot 

His thought, his days. It was a fragrant sea 

Of bud and blossom, where the luckless bee 

Was drowned in sweetness, and for very love 

The nightingale sat songless, while above 

The chaste moon veiled her face ! for every kind 

Of rose, of every shape and size and hue 

And scent the fertile mind of man could find 

A name for, in this matchless garden grew. 

And here the duke walked morning, noon, and night, 

Walked and gazed rapt until his very sight 

Grew sated. Then he crushed the wondrous rose 

And held the shattered fragments to his nose. 

There is a love diviner than the love 



18 THE PAINTER OF MADONNAS 

That sates itself in sweetness, joy above 
The thrill of fond possession: angels white 
Would lose in lustre if they stood each night 
Before us. Beauty passes, reverence flows, 
And glory dwindles from whatever grows, 
Through frequence, common. So I fought the fight 
And won it, kept my angel lustered white ; 
So turned again to paint madonnas, turned 
From longing unto labor, worked and learned 
The joy of doing, such as no man knows 
Until he finds his place appointed, glows 
To fill it, works his work and lives his life 
Untrammeled, unperplexed by paltry strife, 
Conventions, rules, or frills of fashion, true 
And loyal to the impulse thrilling through 
Head, hand, and heart. And so I lead the plain 
Lone life you question, lured by no false strain 
Of siren voices. All the world gleams gold 
Around me, glory stretches uncontrolled. 



Love Lies A-Cold 



In the cool garden closes, 
Where summer and care 
Have wrought beauty so rare ; 

Where the perfume of roses 
Is spent on the air; 
With a reticent glare, 

The soft sunshine reposes 
On the bright-blown flowers 
For hours upon hours. 

Not a breath stirs the willows, 
That border the stream, 
From their mid-day dream ! 

And the slow swelling billows 
Are gathering each beam 
From the sun, with a gleam 

On the sea as it pillows 
The shallops and skiffs 
Beyond the clear cliffs. 



20 LOVE LIES A-COLD 

But the day shall shiver 
And die ere a sound 
Stir a leaf from the ground, 

Or a voice wake a quiver 
From the park to the mound, 
Save the baying hound 

Or the tremulous river; 
For love lies a-cold 
In the castle old. 

From the night till the morning, 
From morning till night, 
When the last lonesome light 

Fills the sky with its warning 
Of the day's damask flight, 
Neither lady nor knight, 

The frail flowers scorning, 
Shall pluck a red rose 
From the garden's close. 



LOVE LIES A-COLD 21 

And the bright breath of summer 

Shall pass into fall; 

And the confident call 
Of the busy-winged hummer 

Shall cease from the wall 

Where the woodbines crawl ; 
Nor the steps of the comer 

Of the now dead days 

Shall quicken the ways. 

The gray gate shall crumble 

And turn into sand, 

But never a hand 
Or a finger shall humble 

Itself to withstand 
The decay, till it brand 
All the walls, and they tumble 

And turn into clay, 

For year and for day. 



22 LOVE LIES A-COLD 

And the flowers, forsaken, 
May wither and die : 
For the wind shall sigh; 

And the branches be shaken; 
But never a cry, 
Or a tear to the eye, 

Shall it startle or waken; 
For love lies a-cold 
In the castle old. 

So the years shall wither 
By months and by days, 
From Mays unto Mays ; 

And the sails flee thither, 
O'er the watery ways, 
From yonder bleak bays, 

Where the moon and with her 
The timid stars shine 
On the barren sea-brine ; 



LOVE LIES A-COLD 23 

And from father this story 

Of love to the son 

Shall descend; and none 
Shall forget the old glory, 

Till the sand be run 

From his glass ; or the sun 
And the stars grow hoary, 

And be not the lights 

Of the days and nights. 

But the castle and garden 

Of the days then long dead, 

Awhile love was shed 
O'er the walls that guard on 

The west, shall be wed 

To waste, and each bed 
To a stone shall harden ; 

For love lies a-cold 

In the castle old. 



Song of Autumn 



I come on the wings of the south-wind ; 

On the wings of the south and east ; 
I tarry in forest and meadow, 

And spread out my harvest-feast. 

I am life, I am death, and harvest, 
The soul of the summer and spring, 

The end of their budding and blooming, 
Of the months and the years I am king. 

My coffers are full ; I give freely 

To the strong and the weak as well ; 

To man, and the birds of the meadow, 
The squirrel and fox in the dell. 



SONG OF AUTUMN 25 

For mine are the barley and wheat fields., 

The apples of red and green, 
The chestnuts of brown on the hilltops, 

And the fields of corn between. 

For me grapes in purple cluster, 

Hang low on the laden vine ; 
And orchards of pears and peaches 

Their garlanded heads incline. 

I bring unto all a blessing 

From inland lake to sea; 
I strew the highlands with plenty, 

The valleys I fill with glee. 

No dingle may lie so hidden 

That I do not spy it out, 
And fill with the wealth of my treasures 

Each distant and secret redoubt. 



26 SONG OF AUTUMN 

For all countries are my dominions, 
From pole to equator and pole ; 

And my coursers are swlift as the lightnings 
To bear me from goal to goal. 

Then I flee on the wings of the north-wind, 
On the wings of the north and west ; 

And leave to the keeping of winter 
The lands that I have blest. 



At Even-Tide 

The western sky in crimson dyed 

Sinks softly o'er the earth's dark breast, 
Shedding abroad a lingering rest, 
At even-tide. 

The shadows climb the mountain-side 
One after one with solemn pace, 
As if aspiring into space, 

At even-tide. 

How listlessly the light boats glide 
Reflected in the gleaming mere, 
While the lone heron hovers near, 
At even-tide. 



28 AT EVEN-TIDE 

And ere the vesper chimes have died 

The monk's low hymn, the chant, the prayer 
Rise trembling on the darkening air, 

At even-tide. 

The patient flocks lie down beside 
The fold, and their meek spirits blend 
With nature, in the day's sweet end, 
At even-tide. 

The brown bright thrushes sing and hide; 
A sigh is echoed from the hill ; 
A star shines out and all is still, 

At even-tide. 



As the King Passed By 



As the king passed by, thro' the narrow street, 

With a thousand menials in his train, 

Ready to catch the downcast rein, 

Or lie in the dust at his princely feet, 

A peasant sat in his lowly door, 

And the sunshine lay on his cottage floor, 

As the king passed by. 

And unto himself the peasant said, 

As he caught the shimmer of purple and gold, 

And saw the menials young and old 

Attend each turn of the royal head: 

"How enviable a man is he — 

A life of ease and of minstrelsy!" 

As the king passed by. 



30 AS THE KING PASSED BY 

As the king passed by, his eye beheld 

The peasant sitting by his door, 

And the warm sunlight on his floor. 

And 'neath the purple his weary heart swelled, 

And he sighed : "What were it worth to be 

Like yonder peasant, trammel-free !" 

As the king passed by. 



The Day is Done 

Ave Maria! all the day is done. 
The red sun settles in the burning west ; 
Along the eastern mountains' jagged crest 
The growing shadows gather one by one, 
Ave Maria ! all the day is done. 

Ave Maria! 'tis the eventide, 

And all creation rests from strife; 

A little while of peace creeps into life ; 

Our work day masks and mimes are laid aside, 

And we return unto ourselves, at eventide. 

Ave Maria! as the dusk descends 

A cooling breeze strikes our flushed face, 

And we begin to feel how fair a place 

Life fills — how large in love; for heaven lends 

To earth a glory as the dusk descends. 



JAN 



Dawn and Dusk 



A tremulous silence, a void of mist, 
A shroud over wood and wold, 
A depth of grey, then amethyst 
And furroughing fields of gold. 

White drifts of cloud that hurry by, 
And silvery waves that lap the sand, 
A growing softness across the sky, 
A mellow music thro' all the land. 



